For more information related to this release,
the media may contact the Fort Hood public affairs office at (254) 287-9993;
after hours (254) 291-2591.

Waldorf Mother Is Furious At Soldier Daughter's
DeathMany 'Don't Believe in This Mission,' She
SaysBy Avis Thomas-Lester and Hamil R. HarrisCourtesy of the Washington Post Staff WritersTuesday, August 21, 2007

Army Sergeant Princess C. Samuels was a girly
girl.

She was a cheerleader in high school. She had
a white poodle named Skylar whose ears and tail she had dyed pink. She
had her Mustang custom painted pink and purple to match a Barbie car she
owned as a child. She loved fashion, especially pink clothes.

Skylar and some of those pink clothes will
be on hand next week when Samuels, 22, one of the latest casualties of
the war in Iraq, is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

A graduate of Charles H. Flowers High School
in Springdale, where she was in ROTC, Samuels, of Mitchellville, was killed
by enemy fire Wednesday in Taji, Iraq. She was stationed there as an intelligence
officer with Headquarters and Headquarters Troop, 1st Brigade Combat Team,
1st Cavalry Division, according to a Defense Department statement.

"I am very upset that this has happened," Samuels's
distraught mother, Anika Lawal of Waldorf, said yesterday. "I want to know
why I'm planning a funeral while George Bush is planning a wedding."

Lawal was among a number of relatives and friends
mourning the loss of Samuels, who died along with another female soldier,
Zandra T. Walker, 28, of Greenville, South Carolina, the release said.
Walker was with the 4th Battalion, 227th Aviation Regiment, 1st Aviation
Cavalry Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division.

"She was beautiful," Lawal said of her daughter.
"She loved her clothes and makeup. She wanted to be a model, but I was
against it. I told her to focus on her brains and to be educated."

Instead of heading to college after high school,
Samuels enlisted in the Army. She told her mother she wasn't ready for
college and wanted to travel.

At her home in Waldorf yesterday, Lawal made
plans to bury her daughter with full military honors. The funeral is scheduled
for August 31, 2007. As she looked at pictures of Samuels, Lawal thought
back to the delight in her daughter's voice as they had made plans to get
matching tattoos and celebrate Lawal's 80-pound weight loss after gastric
bypass surgery.

Lawal recalled her surprise when she learned
that her daughter had married Victor Jones, a former soldier who lives
in Bowie. She said her daughter was terrified to be in Iraq and planned
to leave the military as soon as she could. Lawal also said her daughter
was not cut out to be a soldier and tried to hide her fear during their
telephone calls, including their last one, on Aug. 6, when Samuels called
to wish her mother a happy birthday.

"She was just like the other soldiers," Lawal
said. "They can't come out and say it because they will get in trouble,
but many of them don't believe in this mission. She didn't."

Lawal said her daughter had been ill for months
and had been prescribed a medicine to treat depression and stimulate her
appetite.

She was losing weight. She had been sick, but
they still would not send my child home," Lawal said. "She told me they
were overworked, that she sometimes worked 12 hours a day, seven days a
week."

Carla Lee, 25, Samuels's roommate at Fort Hood,
Tex., said she plans to bring Samuels's beloved Skylar to Maryland for
the funeral. She is also planning to bring the loads of pink clothes that
line Samuels's closet.

"She loved pink," she said. "All of her clothes
were pink."

Even in Iraq, Samuels did not abandon her love
of fashion. She went online to order from Victoria's Secret.

Lee said she received a call from Samuels the
day she died.

"The message said, 'I was just calling to check
on you because you didn't sound very happy the last time we talked. I'll
call you back later.' I still have it on my voice mail," Lee said

"She was a very friendly person," said Anice
Hagler, 21, who was on the Flowers cheerleading squad with Samuels. "She
was funny and a lot of fun to be around."
Thursday, August 23, 2007Landover soldier killed while serving in IraqFamily, friends remember Princess Samuelsby Daniel ValentineCourtesy of Gazette.Net

A military funeral is scheduled August 31,
2007, at Arlington National Cemetery for a Landover woman killed while
serving in Iraq last week.

Sergeant Princess C. Samuels, 22, was killed
August 15, 2007, in Taji, Iraq, located about 50 miles north of Baghdad.
Another woman, Zandra T. Walker, of Greenville, South Carolina, was also
killed in the attack, according to Pentagon officials.

Samuels, who had served in the U.S. Army since
2004, was a graduate of Charles Flowers High School in Springdale, where
she served in the ROTC.

‘‘She was very unique,” said Victor Jones,
Samuels’ husband of one year. ‘‘She was a great person with a big heart
who everybody loved.”

The couple, who met in high school, married
in April 2006.

Nicknamed ‘‘Noodle” because of her thin frame,
Samuels joined the Army in 2004, following in Jones’ footsteps. She had
been assigned to the 1st Cavalry Division based in Fort Hood, Texas, where
she worked with the U.S. Border Patrol before being stationed in Iraq,
her husband said. She later became an imagery specialist in military intelligence.

Off-duty, Samuels lived up to her first name.
Friends and family said the 22-year-old sported a wardrobe full of pink
clothing and had a pet poodle in Texas whose ears she dyed pink.

A Department of Defense statement reported
that Samuels was killed by ‘‘indirect” enemy fire. Officials would not
elaborate.

Former friends joined together online this
week, where a group was formed on the social networking Web site Facebook.com
to honor her memory.

‘‘What’s a prince, with no Princess Samuels?”
was the title Jones chose for the group. He said friends have come together
to support each other.

‘‘I know I miss her, but I am never going to
forget about her,” Jones said this week. ‘‘I’ve lost her. But I have her
at the same time, because she’ll always be with me.”

Grief Turns to Anger Over War's 'Waste'Family Members Tearfully Bid Farewell to 22-Year-Old
'Girly Girl' From MitchellvilleBy Avis Thomas-LesterCourtesy of the Washington PostSaturday, September 1, 2007

Anika Lawal pursed her lips yesterday when
an Army general read the list of honors that had been awarded posthumously
to her daughter, Sergeant Princess Crystal-Dawn Samuels. She shook visibly
as he took her hand, walked her to Samuels's silver coffin and asked her
to place the medals atop the flag draped there.

But the sorrow she and her family expressed
as they gathered for a funeral service at Jericho City of Praise Church
in Landover and later a burial at Arlington National Ceremony soon gave
way to anger.

"This is a total waste -- a total waste," said
the soldier's grandfather, Steve Samuels Sr., looking at the coffin as
it sat on plot number 8719 in section 60 of the cemetery. "She shouldn't
have been over there. We've got young folks dying fighting a war that they
know nothing about. They are not defending a country -- they are being
used as pawns."

Lawal, who said she plans to use her daughter's
death as a platform to argue against the war, wept openly as a three-gun
salute was fired and taps was played on a bugle in the distance. Samuels,
22, the "girly girl" from Mitchellville with the pink-and-white poodle
and the purple-and-pink car, was buried with full military honors.

Samuels's husband, Victor Jones, a former soldier
who lives in Bowie, rocked and stared straight ahead at the ceremony at
Arlington, occasionally wiping his cheek to remove a tear.

Samuels, a graduate of Charles H. Flowers High
School in Springdale, was working as an intelligence officer with Headquarters
and Headquarters Troop, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division,
in Taji, Iraq, when she was killed by enemy fire August 15, 2007, according
to a Defense Department statement.

She had been in Iraq since February, relatives
said, and was so afraid that her health had started to fail. Lawal said
Samuels had been treated for depression and weight loss but had not been
able to return home.

Before the military ceremony at Arlington yesterday,
loved ones, acquaintances and colleagues from Fort Hood, Tex., gathered
at Jericho City of Praise to celebrate Samuels's life.

Lawal, in a cream suit with a pink hat in honor
of daughter, was in tears as she filed past a large photo of Samuels in
an elegant pose. She wailed as she walked toward the flag-draped coffin
where her only daughter lay in her Army dress uniform.

Mourners included Prince George's County Council
member David Harrington (D-Cheverly), County Executive Jack B. Johnson
(D) and U.S. Rep. Albert R. Wynn (D-Md.), who was accompanied by his wife,
Gaines, who taught Samuels art at Flowers High.

Before approaching the family to offer condolences,
Johnson stood in the back of the sanctuary looking at Samuels's photo.

"I'm just disgusted, personally disgusted,
beyond words about what is going on in Iraq and seeing all these beautiful
young people die," Johnson said in an interview. "It's even [worse] because
the president has never defined a national security reason for us being
over there. . . . For him to continue to send our young men and women over
there supposedly to establish a democracy is a falsehood."

Speakers told stories about how Samuels wanted
to be a fashion designer and how she would design outfits from pieces she
ripped off items in her closet. Gaines Wynn told the mourners how Samuels
loved to paint with watercolors and had written her that she was painting
while in boot camp in Fort Huachuca, Ariz., in the middle of the desert.

"Only Princess could have found something to
paint in Fort Huachuca," she said, laughing through tears.

Later she recalled in an interview how surprised
she was to learn that her art student had enlisted in the Army. She said
Samuels went on a high-calorie diet, including ice cream and milkshakes,
to gain enough weight to qualify for service.

During the eulogy, the Rev. Joel R. Peebles
Sr. urged the mourners to be joyful and not sad.

"Family, know that is not a death," Peebles
said directly looking at Lawal. "The Bible says those who believe don't
die. This is simply a crossover moment."

Lawal nodded and smiled, comforted by the message,
then headed to Arlington to bury her only daughter.

A
military honor guard carries the casket of Army Sergeant Princess Samuels
during funeral services
at Arlington National Cemetery Friday, August 31, 2007

A
military honor guard folds the American flag that draped the casket of
Army Sergeant Princess Samuels
during funeral services at Arlington National Cemetery Friday, August 31,
2007

Army
Major GeneralRichard Rowe, left, presents an American flag to Victor Jones,
from the casket of his wife,
Army Sergeant Princess Samuels, during funeral services at Arlington National
Cemetery Friday, August 31, 2007

Victor
Jones, widower of Army Sergeant Princess Samuels, holds a flag presented
to him by Army Major GeneralRichard
Rowe, Jr., left, during funeral services at Arlington National Cemetery
Friday, August 31, 2007
Posted:
23 August 2007 Updated: 31 August 2007 Updated: 1 September 2007 Updated:
2 September 2007 Updated: 30 September 2007 Updated: 19 April 2009